As they eased down the road, the group noticed their immense hunger. Finley pointed out that there was a Lunch-Box tree nearby, which was a tree with lunchboxes filled with food. They practically feasted, none of them had eaten in a while so they were starving. Afterwards, they carried on, feeling a lot better after eating and having a break.
Bryson happily admired the beautiful scenery, still fascinated by the magical land. But as they continued walking, they stopped when they noticed several chopped down trees. Only a few left in the middle. Their faces were that of shear despair. Their eyes were sealed shut and they seemed to be almost slouching and there were many different rotten red apples on the floor.
"Oh my.." Dorothy whispered.
"What... happened here?" Bryson asked.
"I don't know..." Dorothy responded.
She looked absolutely devastated at the sight. She hook her head and looked down at the floor. "I don't know what's been going on lately, it's as if..." She sighed and furrowed her eyebrows, chewing on her lip while she thought. "As if certain places in Oz have the life sucked out of it, and things are just being rearranged and... that Witch coming back out of nowhere and... I don't know what's going on, and.. what if it gets even worse?"
Bryson sighed and shrugged. "I don't know... let's just... not worry about that know. I'm sure it'll be taken care of..." He wasn't sure of his words, but he didn't like seeing Dorothy so glum.
She shrugged. "I hope. I'm asking Scarecrow what's going on when we get to the Emerald City."
Finley's eyes wandered and he appeared as if trying to look innocent, scraping his foot on the floor. Bryson simply gave him a you know something we don't, don't you kind of look and Finley simply shrugged and put on a fake smile.
Bryson rolled his eyes but chose to ignore it for the time being.
As they continued onward, they all pushed their way out of various bushes and thorns, careful not to be hurt. It was harder for Bryson though, for one he was never athletic, to say the least. And the fact Oz was such an alien and foreign place to him, everything looked and felt so strange, he still had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact he was even here.
They carried on and climbed through a steep hill. All of them struggled - mostly Bryson, always being a bit clumsy. He fell a few times but Dorothy and Finley were quick to lift him up. They were such good friends. His "friends" back at home would just taunt him, leaving him to pick himself up, but they were always by his side. "Ya know, my friends back in Tennessee were never this nice. They would've just made fun of me and left me to get up by myself." He told them.
"Well that's just plain rude, they don't sound like the best of friends..." Dorothy replied.
"You're right about that..." He replied.
"Well at least you got us!" Finley spoke up cheerfully.
Bryson nodded and smiled. "I'm glad I do, too."
"So am I, most boys in Kansas your age aren't like you, in a good way that is."
"Thanks..." He replied, he had a good idea of why, but he wanted to hear from her, but he decided to wait til later to ask.
As they trudged up the steep hill, the forest stopped and the Yellow Brick Road had three different ways to go, two of them carried on with the regular road but the one in front of them went into a deep, dark looking forest.
"Which way do you think we should go?" asked Bryson.
"That way!" Finley pointed to the right. "Or that way!" Finley then pointed to the left. "ANYWAY BUT THE WAY THAT IS FRONT OF US, PLEASE."
"Now, Finley, you know that the Dark Forest is the closest to the Emerald City..."
"BUT. BUT."
"No, Finley, I'm sorry but we have to go. I don't want to either, but we can't waste time. Bryson and I will make sure nothing happens to you, right, Bryson?"
"Yup." Bryson assured.
Finley sighed and hesitantly moved forward with them, Bryson was pretty terrified himself, but they had to get a move on.
They all slowly walked in to the forest, and they could hear the sounds of several different creatures in the distance, Bryson and Dorothy were almost shaking, Finley was shaking, and they all just wanted to get out of there.
They all looked around, paranoid of what might pop out at them, but then Bryson stepped on something, he looked down and was shocked at what he saw.
"Hold on guys, I think this is.. my stuff..."
"What?" asked Finley.
"Hold on, on." replied Bryson.
The other two looked down at Bryson curiously, the things he was looking at included one of his older backpacks from school with a green notebook and pencil in it, a clothing hanger, a few old children's books, a video game controller, a clock, and ironically, a cheap replica of Ruby Slippers he must've gotten as a kid. All of this was from back home, he was surprised it was in Oz, did it get sucked up in the tornado? If that was the case, then had anything else been brought here? If he was fortunate enough, his dog Lucky might be here to. He stuffed everything in the backpack, careful to make sure they didn't see the slippers, he didn't want them to know where he came from this was considered fiction. He put the backpack on his shoulders. "This is all stuff from back at my house... I don't know how it got here, though. A tornado is how I got here in the first place, I guess the tornado hit my house and this stuff came.." If that was the case, was his family okay? His mother was annoying and all, his dad abusive, and his sister, well she just ignored him, but he still didn't want anything to happen to them, including his dog.
"I guess so... I got here by tornado also, I know that feeling..." Dorothy said.
Bryson nodded, once again acting as if he didn't know. "I guess we shouldn't linger on that though.. we need to get moving. The group agreed and they carried on, but Bryson kept thinking about what else might've been transported here.
But suddenly, three strange looking plants that were hanging from a tree with teeth started biting at them. They all screamed in terror, all absolutely petrified, Bryson picked up Finley and started running along with Dorothy.
"I HATE THOSE THINGS! THIS IS WHY I WANTED TO GO ONE OF THE OTHER WAYS! I DON'T CARE IF IT TAKES A CENTURY! AND BESIDES, WE'RE GETTING LOST!" Finley cried out.
He was right, Bryson realized he wasn't quite sure just where to turn, it was so dark he didn't know what was going, just as he felt an anxiety attack coming on, they heard strange yelps and screams, inhuman sounds.
The bushes showed signs of movement and out popped 4 creatures that seemed to have the forms of human men, except that had wheels that finger-nails and toe-nails are composed of, and rolled on all fours, their legs and arms were the same length. "Wheelers..." whispered Finley in terror.
Bryson shivered, these things always creeped him out, and seeing them in person was not a pretty sight, the group got closer to each other, they were being surrounded.
They tried to move but they couldn't, the Wheelers kept making odd noises and moving in odd motions, forcing the group to finally run the other direction, and the Wheelers started chasing after them, still making the strange noises, and the group ran out of the forest and onto the Yellow Brick Road.
They ran to the right and could hear the Wheelers in the distance, when they seemed to be gone, Finley spoke up. "I think they're gone. But we better not go back there. Wheelers are protective of their territory.. but I thought Wheelers only lived in the country of Ev, but who knows with... what's been going on lately..."
Bryson could tell he almost slipped up about knowing something they didn't but chose to ignore it.
"Well uh... let's.. get moving.." Finley suggested.
They carried on down the road, and in the distance they could see a town of some sorts. As they got closer, there was a sign that read "China Town."
"I'm glad this sign doesn't talk..." Bryson said playfully.
"Oh yeah, that one sign post down close to Munchkin Land is quite the wise guy." Finley agreed.
"You're telling me..." Dorothy said.
As they looked on, they realized that there was smoke coming from the town, they could hear screaming and other noises.
"What's going on over there?" Dorothy asked.
"I don't know, we'd better go check it out!" Finley replied, worriedly.
They rushed to the China Town, and to their dismay, a high wall made out of thick, solid, polished porcelain of all white, probably intended to protect the fragile little world inside, seemed to have been half destroyed, giving the group a hole to enter in through. They looked around and to their horror they witnessed different winged monkeys flying around, terrorizing the citizens of the town. They were no smaller than a baby doll and they were being chased around. Bryson could see smashed porcelain everywhere, which eluded to the terrifying fact that some China people had been killed. Dorothy put her hands to her mouth and shed a few tears, so was Finley, Bryson was on the verge of it.
They looked up and could see a tall figure standing upon one of the small China houses. The figure had a scepter looking device in his hand. It was a man, and his eyes seemed to be filled with pure fire and hate. He was muscular looking, shirtless, tan, had short brown hair, and was only wearing black pants and boots.
One side of his face had an awful looking scar that looked like it had been on there for a while. In fact, that half of his face looked as if it had been dropped in acid a long time ago or something of that nature - but it wasn't so deformed he looked inhuman. He seemed to be middle aged.
He was controlling the monkeys. He had a very deep, menacing voice.
His head then turned to the trio and he studied them carefully. They all tensed up and were nervous as to what he would do to them.
He jumped off the house and towered over them. He had to be over 6 feet, Bryson thought.
"Well... Dorothy Gale. The girl who killed two witches on accident and then got praised for it. Figures. Oz claims to be such a loving place and they rejoice at the death of a woman that was practically forced to become wicked." Bryson assumed he was talking about the Witch. He was curious if this guy was just trying justify himself, or if he was being legitimate. "I've been wanting to meet you for a while, Dorothy..."
He turned his attention to Bryson, who gulped, causing the man to smirk.
"And Bryson... you're the new kid I've been hearing about." He walked around Bryson as Finley hid behind him and Dorothy.
The man simply looked at the small primate and then back at Bryson. "I imagine you find this whole thing enchanting and magical...don't you? Well you shouldn't... I mean.. I know on the surface this place looks like the happiest place to be at... but trust me... it's... it's not. It's full of lies and deception, it claims to be filled with loving people... quite the opposite. And you'll discover that soon. I can tell just by looking at you... I don't want to hurt any of you... unless you give me a reason to, as the people in this town have. But I'm going to burn Oz. I don't wanna rule it, contrary to popular belief. I want to see it burn and have the life sucked out of it. Why? I'm sure you'll find out sometime. Why am I telling you what I intend to do right in front of you? Because I know you can't stop me from doing it, if that's what you plan on doing. But don't worry, if you don't cause me any trouble, I'll make sure you get back home safely. If you try to interfere, you won't be so... lucky. I'm not the villain here. I know precious Glinda will try to make it out that way. Distort things. Whatever. I'm going to be saving many people a world of hurt by making sure they never come to his place. Just wait and see."
And with that, the man called his monkeys and left the city to burn to the ground. The trio was speechless, and the man walked off in the distance.
"I think I have a good idea of who chopped down those trees..." Bryson muttered when the man was gone, not knowing what to think.